Date of Conviction: 18/07/1807

Age at Conviction: 20

Crime Convicted of: Theft From a Shop

Court Convicted at: Lancaster Assizes (held at Lancaster Castle)

Sentence Length: 7 Years

Ship Transported on: Aeolus

Where Arrived: Port Jackson, New South Wales

Departure Date: 02/07/1808

Arrival Date: 26/01/1809

Biography: Originally from Cheshire, Esther stole a handkerchief from the shop of Ann Hampson at Manchester, she had several past appearances in court for theft including an acquittal only months before at the March assizes- this time her luck had run out.

Esther married mariner Spencer Riley at St Phillips in Sydney in March 1810. She is on muster rolls in Sydney for some years but in 1814 successfully petitioned the governor for permission to rejoin her husband at the Derwent in Van Diemen’s Land as her sentence had been completed. Her ticket of leave was granted in Feb 1814 and she was described as 5ft, brown eyes, black hair and a dark complexion and ‘good looking’. She was 27 at this point and a fustian cotton worker and lists the Derwent in Van Diemen’s Land as her home. This is further supplemented by a notice she placed in the newspaper asking for any claims to be settled before she and her child left the colony in June 1815. This child was a daughter, Elizabeth (Jones), born c.1808 who may well have been born at sea as there are no birth records for her either in England or Australia.

However Esther soon returns to Sydney (if indeed she did go to Van Diemen’s Land) as she appears on muster lists for both 1817, 18, 20. Clearly something went very wrong with the marriage to the sailor- perhaps she found out he had started a new family and that is exactly what Esther did in 1818. She had a child (a boy; William) with William Clarke (ship- Anne). In 1822 and 1825, Esther was noted as a housekeeper at Sydney and wife of W Clarke. In the parish constable’s notebook from 1822 it shows William, Esther, Elizabeth and William jr living together at Baulkham Hills along with an indentured servant.

Esther committed several later crimes. In 1830 (as Esther Ripley) she committed an assault on an Elizabeth Hawkins and was fined. She committed a further assault as Esther Clark/Ripley in 1832 on William Thorn and was jailed for two months. In 1834 newspapers describe how Esther and her daughter Elizabeth collectively smashed the windows of Elizabeth’s ex-boyfriend’s house and that they lived at the ‘St Giles end of the Rock’. Esther had a final brush with the law and is briefly imprisoned in 1835 and pays bail, leaving after two days in Sydney jail.